No more committees
I’m sitting here in NYC, attending a conference on innovation, and I’m thinking about things we can do to increase the likelihood of innovation in our organizations. Of course, there are many things we need to do, but eliminating all standing committees is a really simple and really high leverage idea.
Individually, each association committee is a pocket of bureaucracy. The totality of an association’s committee structure is the underpinning of an organization’s “infrastructure of the status quo.” So let’s shake it up! Here is a prescription for an alternative architecture of “collaborative groups” that I think can work for virtually every association:
1. No more than 6-8 members per group.
2. An equal number of staff and volunteers working together.
3. No chairs; co-facilitators, one staff and one volunteer rotating on a monthly basis.
4. A duration of no less than three months and no more than four months.
5. At the end, the group can reorganize and continue if the work requires it, but it must turnover at least half of its membership.
6. No reports, only conversations.
7. Everyone in a group gets to evaluate the contributions of every other member.
The idea here is to change the dynamics of collaboration and decisionmaking in associations by challenging the assumptions of how staff and volunteers should relate. True creativity and innovation emerges when there is shared respect for a diversity of views and “who’s in charge” is much less important than “who’s got a great idea?”
If we’re going to work on projects, we should work on them and complete them as quickly and intelligently as possible. If the original group assigned to work on something can’t get it done, then new people should be incorporated because new ideas likely are required. The result of group work shouldn’t be a report, but some set of outcomes. The role of the group should be engaging others in conversations about them to ensure they are the right outcomes.
Finally, this more flexible architecture should make it possible to develop both staff and volunteers and move them around to a variety of learning opportunities. The only way that we will help our people grow is by giving them feedback on where they already excel and where they need to do further work. Who better than group colleagues to do such evaluation?
Now, I know that everyone who reads this will want to come up with a hundred different objections to the idea. But let me invite you not to do that. Instead, try to improve it. Ask a different question: how could this work? That is a step in the right direction.
I’m all in favour of reducing the paper trail, but the problem with having “no reports, just conversations” is that it’s impossible to keep track of where you’ve got to, what you’ve agreed and what you have left to think about. As a result, it’s very difficult to stay on task and what starts out as a prescription for making committee life less onerous ends up reproducing the very characteristic that makes it so frustrating: endless talking, and no shared sense of progress.
As an alternative, consider using visual minutes. They have a number of advantages over traditional reporting. They simplify, focusing on the important things without getting swamped by detail. They’re arresting, so you will want to actually look at and engage with them. And they change the tone of meetings, because they encourage you to talk in a different way, using imagery and metaphor to communicate your ideas rather than bureaucrat-ese.
Take a look at http://www.creativeconnection.co.uk/ for an example.
Paul, thanks for your comment, although I need to call you just a little bit on the self-promotional element of it. ;>)
I think you’re making an assumption that reporting equals tracking. I think there is more than one way to track progress without reports, including the visual minutes you suggest. I certainly agree that effective tracking is necessary lest we create a different kind of frustration. My experience tells me that individual organizations can develop tracking approaches that work for them without the horrors of constant reporting. Associations will have a more difficult time creating and supporting the right kinds of conversations to ensure a variety of stakeholders have a voice in moving the right work forward i the right way. It is in those conversations that we will find true wisdom.
Jeff, I’ll call you on it.
Why do we need committees at all?
First of all, Kevin, great session yesterday on blogging at GI Orlando. But you need to read this post more carefully. I’m saying no more committees. But we still need small collaborative groups to work on specific projects or ideas. The real opportunity is create a new structure that makes it easier to develop our staff and volunteer leaders as partners through a variety of experiences. The kind of approach I’m advocating is an element of changing the way associations do business and grow their people. Thanks for commenting.
Thanks, Jeff (and thanks for your help with the session yesterday).
I like your idea, just exploring further … this seems similar to what some groups tried to do a while back by changing “committees” to “working groups” or “teams” (which in most cases, admittedly, amounted to nothing more than a name change, while you outline a much more rigorous approach than just nomenclature).
And maybe we’re talking about two different things. I was thinking of committees as the way decisions get filtered up through a process in most organizations. There was a definite reason to have them if you wanted to get anything done. With technology, that reason has gone away. Now you could easily establish systems to involve every member (or at least every interested member) in these decisions. Discussions can happen anywhere in real time, opinions can be ranked and counted, and decisions can happen instantaneously, making the old model of small groups unnecessary.
Jeff - I like the structure you outline for getting rid of committees - seems fine to me, especially the idea that the membership must turn over and that the contribution of everyone must be evaluated. Drucker interviewed someone whose board did this (i.e. evaluated its own members) in his book Nonprofit Management. My thought, though is that these rules don’t represent a sea change — am I wrong? I mean, you could manage committees using the guidelines you’ve articulated and get the same outcomes, no?
[…] Think hybrid–Associations can smartly experiment with open source approaches by marrying them to current strategic outcomes. For example, the entrenched and often dysfunctional committee bureaucracy found in most associations is a ripe opportunity for prototyping new forms of organizing that make richer and more rapid collaboration possible. In We Have Always Done It That Way: 101 Things About Associations We Must Change, I advocated for the elimination of all association standing committees, in favor of joint member-staff working groups with a focus on quick and creative action. By road testing new structures such as these in the service of their actual work, associations will learn what works and what doesn’t. In what areas can your association link new ways of organizing with on-going organizational work? […]